Instead of trying to transform the gamers community into labs rats in order to find new ways of selling us more crappy half finished entertainment (games in this case), try to focus on creativity and innovation.

How many crappy games are released today because they are unfinished, bugged and unplayable? Of course data mining is the better economic plan since it allows to collect money by releasing the game early and pretend you care about your customer base instead of beta testing your product (This actually cost more money and delays the production cycle).

Data mining is flawed: It collects data about what we like. The result is a massive amoung of clone games with very little creativity other than mind blowing GFX. Focus on something new instead, something we havent seen yet, something original, something that will be a surprise instead of the version 65 of a "well selling title".

Beta test your product, (data mining isnt a cheap way of doing it) Ask for feedback if you like (There is plenty of discution forums the gamers will be happy to contribute). Funny part about this, most gamers have the impression you never read those since you rarely answer them, yet you pretend you want to collect data using a sneaky method while you ignoring most of our suggestions/feedback on discussion boards. Makes me wonder about your real motives ... Make more money with lower costs and very little concern about your product other than if it will sell.